Bosphorus Dreams
by Vivalatuavita
Summary: Over five thousand miles of ocean separated the two strangers. They were worlds away from where they needed to be. OR Clarke and Bellamy find their way to one another through two separate lifetimes.
1. Chapter 1

**2016**

Bellamy Blake rolled over in his bed and began smashing buttons on his phone, as the alarm blared a poppy tune that no doubt Octavia had set. He tried closing his eyes again but the song grew louder. His hand came down hard and the song went silent this time. He sat up, engulfed in a small deluge of cool, Egyptian cotton. The cell phone was somewhere on the nightstand.

Two-thirty pm and six missed calls. Shit. His headache was worsening. He thought a quick nap would have helped but now he'd overslept and was about to miss the entire ceremony.

He reached over and grabbed his laptop from the bedside nightstand. His homepage was set to CNN. One of the headlines read, "Historic ceremony commences with an Ottoman heir nowhere in sight." A blinking red time bar indicated the computer was low on battery so he scanned the article quickly.

Last update: 2.00 pm. Istanbul. Representatives of the World Jewish Federation gather at the Nev Shalom Synagogue in downtown Istanbul for an historic ceremony to officially acknowledge the role that Ottoman emperors played in saving Jews during the Spanish Inquisition. Bellamy Blake, the only legitimate living descendant of the last Ottoman sultan, was scheduled to receive an official commemorative plaque on behalf of the country, but the 32-year-old real estate tycoon was nowhere to be seen. The ceremony has commenced without him with the plaque being symbolically handed over to…"

The screen faded. The battery went dead. Bellamy slammed the lid on his computer. He reached over and popped two ibuprofen tablets before collapsing back against his pillow. When the headaches started, they were tolerable, just a sporadic nuisance that came and went with the pop of a pill. He raised his fingers to his temples and pressed hard.

Five thousand miles away, Clarke Griffin painted a portrait of her father from her small studio in Englewood, New Jersey, the news blaring in the background on a beat up old radio Raven had found in a dumpster somewhere and 'fixed'. Something about the commemoration ceremony taking place in Istanbul, but there was static fading in and out and she could barely make out the report. She put her brush down and took a sip of espresso. She'd planned on being at the ceremony in Istanbul with her father, as he was president of the World Jewish Federation. That was before the last CT scan. They were all surprised by how ferociously his cancer had spread.

Jake Griffin canceled his trip, and Clarke went to work on his portrait.

Over five thousand miles of ocean separated the two strangers. They were worlds away from where they needed to be.

* * *

 **1563**

Abra had never been invited into the royal harem of the Sultan before, but she was eager to meet and know the legendary women sequestered behind its guarded walls. Aside from being the Sultan's private family quarters, the harem also served as a kind of high-end girls' university. The most intelligent and beautiful women of the empire were brought there to receive the very best education available. Although technically slaves, they were rigorously trained in literature, music, poetry, and art. Their schooling was strict and took up much of the day. Those who were not chosen as the Sultan's concubines were treated very much like daughters of the imperial household. After nine years of service, they were granted the freedom to leave. Very few of them exercised this freedom.

These were the most refined, beautiful, and sought after women in all the empire. It was the Sultan himself who chose their husbands, married them off to high ranking officials and Ottoman princes, provided their trousseaux, and bestowed them stately villas in which to begin their new lives.

Among the concubines of the Sultan who remained in the harem, epic power struggles were known to ensue. It was not unheard of for one of these women to attack another, to mar the beauty of her rival and decrease one's competition with the Sultan.

They entered the harem as slaves, were educated alongside exalted princesses, and aspired to the rank of Valide Sultan, or Queen Mother. In this way, every sultan was the son of a former slave. It was the Valide Sultan who governed harem life and was oftentimes intricately involved in matters of state. It was she who dominated her son and advised him on how to govern his empire. Abra had heard it many times since her arrival in Istanbul.

The time was known as The Reign of Women.

Very few outsiders were granted access to this private world but when they were, they came back with tales of palace intrigue, vast riches, and exotic beauties from every conquered corner of the world.

Since having been re-settled on palace grounds, and with Josef away at the Imperial Council most of the time, Abra grew lonelier than she'd ever been. She had lost her mother, and now it seemed, she had lost her husband, too. With little adult companionship of her own, she grew bored and listless. Hers was a life cut off from the outside world, yet apart from the vibrant and bustling community within the Imperial gates. For Abra, the Sultana's invitation offered the promise of new friendships, perhaps even, a life of her own.

She settled on a blue tunic beaded with pearls and a muslin veil she secured on her head with a gilded, feather headdress. Then, she dressed Klark. Her blue eyes shone bright against the glittering gold fabric chosen for her; igniting her golden hair like a veil.

The party itself was much grander than Abra had ever seen before. Fireworks filled the sky and reflected above the sea while steaming trays of veal, duck, and mutton were ferried out from the royal kitchens. An orchestra sat atop the pavilion, entertaining the women with flutes and harps. While dancers undulated to the music with brass bells swinging from their hips and ankles.

As Abra shuffled along, she realized there must be several hundred women living there, along with their small children, as well as servants and maids. The ladies of the harem included Persian beauties, Christians, Jews, and foreigners from the farthest reaches of the empire.

A woman stopped in front of her, her dress and beauty outshining every other lady in the harem, signifying her rank as the Sultan's beloved. On her head gleamed a feathered headdress dressed in rubies, and a sheer veil that did nothing to hide her loveliness.

"You must be Abra," the Sultana said frostily.

Abra bowed low at the waist, her hair brushing the ground below.

"I take it this is your daughter," the woman grasped Klark's chin between her fingers and tilted her head side to side as she studied her. "Very pretty, isn't she?"

Abra winced.

The Sultana summoned a young servant with the flick of her wrist. "Take this girl to the garden to play with the other children," she said without bothering to look at the servant as she spoke. "I have a message for you." She turned her attentions back to Abra. "I think you'll be pleased."

"A message?"

"From the Sultan," she continued casually. "It concerns your daughter."

"Klark? What about her?"

"It's been decided that she'll be educated inside the harem alongside other royal children." Sultana paused for a long moment. "She'll be schooled in music and poetry, language and literature."

Abra blinked incredulously.

"She will be in safe hands, rest assured," the Sultana tried to sound reassuring, "and receive the very best education the empire has to offer a young lady."

"I don't quite understand."

The Sultana sighed wearily, then tilted her long neck back, her dark curls cascading down her shoulders and back like a waterfall. "Your husband has been loyal to the Sultan," she explained unenthusiastically. "Loyalty has its rewards."

Abra lowered her gaze.

"Come." She smiled casually.

"In the morning, my man will arrive at your villa to collect your daughter."

"And my husband?"

"Your husband will be pleased," Sultana continued matter-of-factly.

"But Sultana," She dropped her voice to a whisper. "What if he refuses?"

The Sultana tilted her head and furrowed her brow before letting out a long, hard cackle. "Why on earth would he do that?" She seemed genuinely confused.

"He has already secured a place for her in the school this coming quarter."

"The decision has been made, Abra," the Sultana explained. "I thought you'd be pleased," she continued, saccharine. A blast echoed in the sky and the two women looked up instinctively. Flurries of fire dissipated over the sea like gold dust sprinkled from the clouds.

"Spectacular, isn't it?" The Sultana marveled at the fireworks display overhead.

"Yes, Sultana." Abra's voice was barely a whisper.

"Most things at Topkapi are." She eyed Abra suspiciously. "Tomorrow, Klark will stay in the harem, and you will request visits with her whenever you like."

And with that, Sultana turned and walked off in a flourish, her colorful skirts sashaying behind her as she rejoined her party.

* * *

Several weeks had passed before Abra was invited back into the harem. She joined Sultana in her private garden where she drank tea and waited for news of her daughter. Through the bamboo lattices, Klark and Belomi could be seen sitting atop the jewel-studded saddle of a miniature pony.

"Let me go to her." Abra stood from her place.

"What's the rush?" Sultana seized her by the wrist. "Relax with me and watch them play a little longer." With her long torso and fair legs sprawled out across the silk divan, the Sultana looked the part. She was the Sultan's favorite, beautiful and lively.

"Is it safe? Klark's never ridden before," said Abra.

"Perfectly safe, and she's rides often." Twisting her body low into the seat of the cushion, Abra tried to appear comfortable. Sultana's brown eyes bore through her with relentless precision. "You haven't yet mastered the art of small talk, have you?" Her slipper slapped lazily against the sole of her foot as she spoke. Abra looked away, biting her bottom lip.

The high-pitched squeal of children's voices sounded from beyond the garden. Abra raked through the lattices and saw that Klark was being lowered from the saddle by one of the servants.

"She looks happy," Abra remarked quietly.

"Of course. It is only natural that a young girl would want to be with other children her age."

"Does she ask for me?" Abra did her best to sound pitiful, a change in tactic that she hoped might stir up a bit of compassion in the Sultana.

"When she arrived, but she's stopped that now."

"Do you find it as odd as I do?" Abra feigned nonchalance.

"What's that?" Sultana held out her hand as a servant girl went to work filing her nails.

"The two of them spending so much time together."

"They enjoy each other's company," the Sultana said. "Belomi will be gone before he's old enough for anything serious."

"Gone?"

"Sent away. You don't see any grown men around here." The frenzied shuffle of little feet in motion sounded from the corridor. "Here they come," said Sultana as the children stumbled in with grass in their hair and mud splotched along their hems.

"Mama?" Klark questioned when she noticed Abra's presence. Her eyes smiled as she climbed atop the divan and nestled herself in her mother's lap. "My darling." Abra drew a ring with her finger across the girl's cheek and nose. "Your smile is as bright as a gold ducat." Wide-eyed, Klark studied her mother's face. After a moment, she lowered her chin, slipped off from Abra's lap and headed away with Belomi the way they had come.

"May I visit again?" Abra asked the Sultana once Klark had run off.

"As often as you'd like." She looked away and waved in Abra's direction. "I think I've had enough for one day. You may go now."

For the next several years, Klark was raised in the harem, alongside the Sultan's many children, nieces, and cousins. She was reared by an army of harem women that included the Sultan's favorite concubines and relatives. It was known all throughout, Klark was the child of the Sultan's most trusted confidante, adviser and friend. She received a royal education, becoming well-versed in poetry, dance, embroidery, and art. Only, she was not schooled in Koranic studies. The Empire's policy of religious tolerance extended throughout the land and was accordingly upheld even in the dank corridors of the Imperial harem.

* * *

 **1573**

Belomi rested the oars in their holsters and let their canoe drift aimlessly. The shore was just a faraway cluster of miniatures now. He hung his arm over the side of the boat and slapped the water playfully.

"I don't see you often enough," Klark said matter-of-factly.

"And I cannot see you at all." He nodded towards her veil, where he could barely make out the shape of her face, her eyes. He wiped his wet hand on his silk caftan. "I'll never get used to it."

"What does it even matter? You already know what I look like."

"It's not the same."

"Belomi, it's not proper."

"We used to swim naked in the fountain together. Don't talk to me about proper," he quipped.

"We were children," she shot back.

He leaned in close. "You've never been in trouble a day in your life, Klark."

She snorted. "I don't have the same proclivity for trouble as you do, Bel."

"Maybe not." He leaned back against his elbows and grinned at her. "I like you just the way you are."

She smiled awkwardly. "I don't like this, either," she gestured at the veil covering her face. "At least have this time together." She smiled a smile he could not see. Then, she pulled a few pins from her veil and let the fabric fall away exposing blond hair that fell loose in long, loose curls.

He grasped a strand, twisting it around his finger and tugging lightly, playfully, as he did when they were children. He loved Klark's hair; no one quite had the same shade as hers, mixed with sunlight and moonglow.

Yellow specks of sun glinted off the water's surface dotting her pale complexion with a smattering of white light, as if she were ethereal that could not be contained, the light like a halo atop her head. He just looked at her for a time, as if this were a gift he could not quite believe he had received, knowing that the sun would eventually pinken her cheeks to display a splatter of freckles akin to his own. Suddenly, the buzzing of a wasp came between them. Belomi instinctively reached for the veil (now set off to the side) and swatted the insect away, and as he did, accidently flung the muslin fabric overboard.

"Belomi!" Klark stood in her place. He shrugged apologetically. "How am I ever going to explain this!" Her eyes narrowed to slivers as her veil sank away beneath the water's surface.

She shoved him hard.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm sorry! Let me get it," he offered sheepishly, then stood up and removed his shoes.

"Do you see it anywhere?" She stepped forward and the boat careened dangerously. Belomi grabbed hold of her outstretched arms, falling forward as he did.

The fall seemed to happen very slowly.

An invisible force exerted a downward pressure on them both, plunging them deep through the hard, sharp surface of the river and into the dark waters below. A kind of water-wind jettisoned them to some unknown depth, at which point, they spun around and examined one another through the watery lens that engulfed them both. Suspended in that place with their clothes and hair weightless, their eyes were wide and their lungs still. It was a quiet world, a world without veils or rules or rituals. A world without any noise except for the sound of one's heart thumping in one's chest and one's blood coursing through one's veins.

Klark looked upwards toward what could only be the sun, a runny, yellow mark on the far end of the water. When she kicked her feet Belomi followed suit, and the force of their kicks shot them skyward. In an instant, they had surfaced in a ring of ripples and gasps, both greedily pulling air into their lungs.

Belomi swam towards her.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She coughed up some water.

"Look what I found." He held out her soaking veil and flung it onto the canoe. When she didn't respond, he took a closer look at her. "You're shivering," he deadpanned, watching her teeth chatter and gooseflesh break out on her chilled arms. He pulled her towards the boat. "Come on, I've got you." He unhinged a small ladder on the side of the canoe and helped Klark up before boarding himself. "Take off your caftan before you freeze to death."

She obliged and slipped off her robe, twisting the fabric and wringing it out. She spread the fabric flat at the back of the boat, hoping that the sun would dry it before they got back to the palace. When she turned back, Belomi had already shed a few layers, exposing his thick, muscular arms, bare from shoulder to wrist. They sat there quietly baking dry under the warm sunshine as they tried to calm their breathing.

After a time, he spoke up. "I'm going to be sent away soon." The thought had weighed heavy on his mind for some time.

She glanced up.

"I'm too old to live in the harem now." He answered the question she hadn't asked. "Here. Feel." He took her hand and brought it to his face, pressing her palm against his cheek.

She caressed her fingers across the length of this jaw. "You have been shaving."

"A few months now." He pulled away.

"But how?"

"I hide the razor between my mattress and shave before everyone wakes. It's only a matter of time before they realize it. I know they have their suspicions already."

"Bel..." She moved a few inches closer to him.

"Most of us are sent away by now. My brother managed to stick around until he was fourteen, but I'm already fifteen. I have no idea how I lasted this long."

She suddenly shed her cool demeanor. "So, they're going to send you away?"

"You know they will."

"When will I see you again?"

Belomi lowered his chin and turned. She nodded, then reached for her sopping veil and flung it back into the sea. They watched it as it pulled beneath the water's surface, sinking into its depths.

"That's it? You're just going to leave because they tell you to?"

"What other choice do I have?"

"We can fight this."

"We can't fight it, Klark! It's how it is."

"There has to be a way."

"You know how this works. There are no men inside the harem."

"If you go," She lowered her voice, "I go with you."

He leaned back and scoffed at the suggestion. "What of your father?"

She rubbed her hands together and rocked in her place. "I think he would be fine with it."

"Are we talking about the same person? Your father, Josef? There is hardly a Hebrew more fervent in his faith."

"My father is an enlightened, educated man. He will see reason."

"You can add zealot to the list."

"He cares about freedom!"

"You have been gone so long that you no longer know him at all," he murmured quietly. It was his mother that had taken her from her family as a child, even in knowing that Abra could no longer have children after she nearly died giving birth to Klark.

"My father is a great man! He risked his life to practice a faith forbidden to him. No one knows the importance of freedom more than he does. He left everything behind to bring himself and my mother to a better life." She shook her head and reached for the oars. "Don't talk about my father. You don't know him at all." She fumbled with the oars, painstakingly rowing the boat – in the wrong direction. "I'm ready to go back now, Belomi." He winced at her usage of his full name. She bestowed him a withering glare that Medusa herself could only hope to conjure.

"Klark…"

"It's getting late."

"Just wait a minute-"

"I better get back," she snapped, abandoning the oars at her side, crossing her arms over her chest. "Either help me turn this boat around, or I'm going to swim."

He searched her eyes, leaning in close until he could feel her breath on his cheek. "Klark, I'm sorry," he murmured, "I want us to be together."

Reluctantly, she softened her stance and put her arms around his neck. "I'll go where you go."

"And your people?"

She looked up and turned her gaze toward the place where the sea met the sky. "You are my people," she said without glancing back. Belomi nodded.

Neither of them spoke, nothing left to say or do as they drifted further from the shore. Only the silent oath between them.

* * *

As the months passed, Belomi began to take notice of the eunuchs, who eyed him suspiciously as he and Klark rode out on their horses or took long walks in the gardens. It had become impossible to hide the shadow of a beard that crept up along the length of his cheeks and above his lip. He had grown tall—a head taller than his father—and was towering over every boy, lady, and eunuch within the harem. How he had managed to remain in the women's quarter longer than any prince before him was somewhat of an open secret.

For years, his mother, the Sultana, had agonized about the day she would be separated from her son. Every few months, rumors would circulate that Belomi was finally to be sent away. It was during these times that the Sultana retreated into her chambers locking the door from the inside with an iron bolt. When the Sultan would call on her late in night, she had the audacity to refuse him her bed. He was left standing in the cold, like a common beggar at her stoop. He would threaten and shout and pound on the door, but it was all in vain.

The most powerful man in Turkey was rendered powerless. His heart was in her hands. It was only after assurances were made that her son would remain with her for a few more months, a few weeks, a few days, it was only then that she let the Sultan enter her chamber. But one cold night, frustrated by the ornery woman that he loved, he had his men break down her door.

Shouting was heard as the shattering of clay pots and vases sounded throughout the quiet compound. The next day, her door was replaced with a thick, velvet curtain, and Belomi was informed that he was to be sent away. He was a man and could no longer live among the women and children.

Belomi said goodbye to his mother and sisters then gathered his things from the Sultana's apartment. He was given his own quarters with servants, butlers, and beautiful women. And yet he thought only of Klark. He had to find a way to see her again.

As he walked along one of the servants' paths, Belomi spotted Rohit not far in the distance. The Ethiopian eunuch had just rounded the corner disappearing behind a thick wall of tall hedges leading up towards the kitchen quarters.

"Rohit!" Belomi called out as he quickened his pace. "Rohit!" The eunuch spun around to face Belomi.

"Effendi, what are you doing here?"

"How are you, Rohit?" Belomi attempted to sound casual.

The eunuch's expression stiffened. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Belomi took a step back and cleared his throat. "I just thought you might have some news." At the eunuch's befuddled expression, he added, "from the harem."

"It's only been a month."

"A lot can happen in a month."

"Most of the boys cannot wait to leave the harem and become men, but you… You're different, aren't you, Belomi?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand—"

"You want to get back and see the girl, and you think I can help."

"Can you?" Belomi leapt at the suggestion.

"Of course not," scolded Rohit. "Do you want me to get me executed?"

Belomi's posture withered. The eunuch shook his head and hobbled along, his walking stick dragging in the dirt. "There must be some other way," Belomi pleaded. "I need to get back to her."

"The girl is almost fifteen; she will be going home, a woman grown. There is no point in trying to sneak your way back into the harem."

"When? When does she leave?"

"I'm to escort her back to her father's house in a week's time."

Belomi looked around. "Here." He pointed to a tall pomegranate tree, heavy with the hanging fruit, and disappeared beneath it.

"Can you see me?" Belomi called out from behind the wall of leaves.

"You are very well hidden."

Belomi emerged and was standing by the eunuch once more. "I will hide here in seven days' time. Bring her to me."

"You know that I can't."

"Do this for me, and one day when I am sultan, I will be in your debt."

Rohit seemed to mull it over. A favor from the Sultan would be an advantageous thing to have. "Just this once. Be here by twilight."

Belomi clasped his hands together loudly. "I won't forget this."

The eunuch turned away and frowned.

"I really wish you would."

* * *

Seven days later, just before sundown, Belomi took his place in the brush of the tree and waited for Klark. While he hid, the kitchen staff bustled past with silver trays topped with delicacies. Wagons of sacks and grain rolled past toward the kitchens, pulled by donkeys.

To pass the time, he began to count the heels of servants and princes passing by. When his back began to ache in his crouched position, he looked up through limbs and leaves as he quietly broke apart a pomegranate with his knife. The moon was bright but he couldn't make out even a single star in the pale sky.

Somewhere in the heavens, his and Klark's star signs overlapped. Earlier, he strode to the dark sanctuary in the compound, searching for the Sultan's spiritual advisor. The old man brushed crumbs from his long, white beard as he confirmed what Belomi had known all along. The heavens embraced their union – Belomi and Klark were made to be together. It did not matter that she was a foreigner or a Jew. It was fated.

Klark, daughter of Josef and Abra, was a perfectly suitable match for the Sultan's son.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of twigs crunching underfoot. He pushed past a thicket of jade and lime colored leaves and spotted Klark. Her turquoise caftan wrapped her in a silk cocoon as she ducked under the remaining leaves and toppled down next to him, thighs touching. Wild flowers rose like a fortress shielding them from view.

Silence reigned supreme; the air pulsating with unanswered questions. He lifted her veil and considered her sky-blue eyes, ran his calloused thumb over the soft, unmarred flesh of her jaw. "I wanted to give you something, if you'll have it." He pulled out small ring that had burned a hole in his pocket all afternoon, the gold warm in his hands and pressed it into her open palm – a glittering ruby encased in the golden bang. Inset, the inscription read, "To my queen, my love."

She examined the stone, turning it around until the moonlight caught the red gleaming facets. "I love you," she whispered. Her eyes met his and they smiled one smile. Belomi slid the ring over her finger. "My father gave us permission to marry in the new year." He kissed her for a long moment, combing back blond tresses with his fingers. Then he peered through the cascade of branches that enveloped them both into the dimming world beyond. The slender treetops of the forest swept wantonly against the silver sky.

"Go," he pulled away reluctantly, grasping her face between his hands, trying to memorize her. "Your family is waiting." She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him by the nape of his neck until his chest was pressed to hers. Her eyes glistened as she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before she said goodbye and slipped away.

* * *

A week had passed when Klark awoke to find her father standing over her bedside, shaking her. "Papa? What's wrong?" She glanced beyond the lattices into the thick night. Crickets chimed against a silent backdrop. The moon was still high in the sky, several hours before dawn. "Papa?" She sat up in her bed, hysterical now by her father's silence. Surely her mother was all right? "What's happening? Please, tell me."

"Pack a bag. Take only what you need."

"Why?"

"Get your things. Quickly," he urged.

Klark pulled herself to her feet, hands hovering on what to grab first. "I don't understand what's happening."

"You need to trust me, Klark. Pack your things." He kissed her forehead and combed matted curls from her face, like he did when she was a child. "Meet me at the gate."

Just a few moments later, Klark stood by her father in a hooded cape with a satchel in tow. He took her things and led her by the arm towards a winding dirt road. They walked the path silently until Klark's eyes adjusted and her feet ached. It must have been hours, because the sun was beginning to peak. A large, hooded man in a black cloak and a red beard emerged from the thicket. Beneath him was the largest stallion Klark had ever seen.

"This man will escort you."

"What are you talking about?" The panic in her voice was mounting. She yanked her elbow from her father's grip, looking incredulously at him in the dusk. "I won't go," she fumed.

"Go with him," he said flatly. "I've trusted him to keep you safe on your journey." He thought of his parents, who had orphaned when he was young. They existed now only in his memories, where even his fondest moments were blurry and incomplete. How was it they had sacrificed, had perished for their belief, so that their granddaughter could relinquish it so freely.

"Don't do this to me. Please, don't." She threw her arms around his waist. "Don't send me away, papa, please." Her father must have noticed the ring, Belomi's promise to marry her.

"I am doing this for you," Josef whispered as the rider dismounted the stallion and made his way towards Klark.

"No!" She cried, clinging to his shirt. Tears streaked down her cheeks. "Do not do this."

He turned away so she wouldn't see the tears streaming down his face. "You must." He held her for the last time, wrapped her up in a tight embrace. "Go." He could feel her body trembling against his and her wet tears soak into the fabric."Now."

"Where is he taking me?"

Josef spoke in a low whisper. "You are to live in Tiberias." Israel. He was sending her to Israel, so, so far away. "I've arranged for you to stay with an old friend of mine."

"No! I won't go." The man with the red beard stepped forward and pried Klark from Josef as she sobbed loudly and pounded on his chest with closed fists, kicking madly. He tossed her slender body over his muscular shoulder and lifted her onto the black horse with ease, to would take her away from Istanbul forever. She continued to kick and throw her fists wildly, screaming herself hoarse.

Josef watched as the horse carried his daughter into the darkness, until he could no longer hear her sobs and obscenities. The scent of charred flesh filled his nostrils. The screams and sweat and misery of that hot summer day would be branded in his memory until his last breath. Persecuted for their faith. He saw them there, their anguish pulsating throughout his body, out through his fingertips and back through his head.

He saw them burning. There was fire in his eyes.

He would not let that be Klark's fate.

* * *

When Josef revealed to Abra what he had done, they stared at one another for a quiet moment. Her jaw twitched in anger. With her face turned away, she slipped the emerald and gold cuff off her wrist. It clattered to the ground and the clasps broke apart, skittering across the floor. She snapped a low curse before looking at him like he was a stranger to her. He had been unable to make out what she said. He had heard the vicious pleas of his daughter as the red man trotted off with her; heard the words from her mouth that cut him deeply. He imagined Abra's curse to have the same effect, a thousand cuts to his core.

He did not arrive at court the next day, or the next. On the third day of his absence, he was summoned to the palace. He entered the quarters of the Sultan's office with his head bowed low, a show of tears drying on his face. He'd rehearsed his speech a hundred times, had gone over the plan in his head countless times.

It really was a perfect plan.

Consumption swept across the region like a tidal wave. There was hardly a family in his community who could claim they had not lost a loved one to the sickness. Certainly, the Sultan would not question it. Josef didn't even need to produce proof of a body, what with the Sultan's issuance to cremate the deceased immediately to prevent the spread of the disease.

"Our daughter…" he whispered in a tone of hushed grief. "The fever… my child… two days ago, it took my dear Klark… there was nothing we could do." Josef could feel his heart throbbing in his chest as he lied to the Sultan. His heart tightened. He had not expected shame to bubble up, thicken like butter in his throat.

Josef fell to the ground and wept at the feet of the Sultan. He would never see his daughter again. He had killed her with his deeds. He had banished her with his lies. Josef took leave of his duties at the palace for a month of mourning – to mourn the loss of all that he held dear. He had lost his daughter, he had lost his wife, and now, he had lost his way.

* * *

"She is dead," his father told him.

Belomi looked out of his window. In the very place where the sun should have been, he found a large, black hole in the blue sky. Below, people were bustling, carrying about as usual. Gardeners tended to the shrubs, as though they still believed it were possible for life to continue. Rohit, along with the other eunuchs, continued to guard the gates under the mistaken impression that there was anything left on this earth still worth protecting. A bird chirped a contemptuous song of oblivion as it flitted about the courtyard. White doves brazenly spread their wings and dove recklessly through the wanton sky—a sky so bright and blue and without shame that Belomi grit his teeth and fists in frustrated rage.

He wanted to scream down to all those oblivious, passing by, "You fools! Your appointments, your plans, your dreams! Go ahead and drop them all, only take up your shovels, for we must bury it all. How cruel this life is!" But he didn't shout these words. He did not say anything at all.

Belomi was silent for six days. Day after day, his father sat at the edge of Belomi's bed, talking to him and trying to coax him to eat something. And still, Belomi did not answer, but looked up blindly for trap doors in the ceiling where he wished he could slip away from his life, from his cruel fate.

On the seventh day, he finally spoke. "I loved her."

* * *

He had not left his chamber in a fortnight. The room was kept dim, the shutters drawn tight. In the darkness, the Sultan could barely see his son's face. Curled up in a snail's silhouette, Belomi sat with his knees tucked up to his chin.

"I loved her."

His father only looked at him, grief evident for his favorite son. "I know."

Belomi fought back his tears, caved into his father's embrace. He had always seen her as a force of nature, with the power to shift gravity, tilt the world on its axis, through sheer force of will.

The idea that a force as such as death that not even his father, the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire, could bring her back, thoroughly stunned him. That she was only human was inconceivable. In fact, it was more than he could bear.

"No," he breathed in a tone so eerily low and dismal, it sent a chill through the Sultan.

"No," he told the servants when they attempted to serve him delicacies from the furthest reaches of the empire. "No," he would hiss, his eyes cold and distant. Everything tasted of ash now. He dismissed them all with a dangerous, thrashing gesture, a motion so sweepingly violent, it could have knocked over even the sturdiest of men.

He believed she could come back, if only she willed it. In Belomi's distress, visions of Klark weighed heavy on his lids. Her mischievous smile, her blue eyes that reflected an August sky, her pale skin… it all bled through his dreams, until he could no longer discern what was real. They were leaching images, eerily sedentary, and haunting. They snuck upon him the way a dead body washes ashore under the cloak of night.

It was just a few hours before sunrise when Belomi was startled awake, his sheets were drenched in a cold sweat. Crickets chimed in the still of night and a silver mist hung low over the Bosphorus strait.

He summoned the Sultan's spiritual advisor to his bedside.

"What is it?" The Sheik's long robe trailed as he hurried to his side.

"I had such a strange dream." Belomi kicked his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up. "Tell me what it means."

"You have dreamt many dreams before."

"This one... it's different." Belomi leaned forward anxiously. "I know it."

"Go on, then. Tell me what it is you dream of."

Belomi closed his eyes, trying to envision it. "I was laying on the grass out there, in the garden, with the sun above me."

"You weren't alone, were you?" the man interrupted.

Belomi shook his head. "She was on the grass beside me. Not speaking, not moving, just being there, together."

"Take your time, Belomi. Tell me all."

Belomi nodded, his lids still sealed tight. "It was strange. We just lay there, content, for a lifetime. The seasons changed, a hundred years came to pass. I awoke shortly after."

"You and this girl will be together again."

"Impossible. She's dead."

"Belomi," the advisor pressed. "Fate has a way of happening."

* * *

Belomi waited.

He hoped that the Sultan's advisor was right—that Klark was alive and she would come back to him—that she would find him and unearth him.

Belomi waited.

Weeks turned into months. Seasons passed and colors changed, gave away to years, decades. And still, he waited, haunted by every part of her. He grew more desperate in time, certain she was alive, and that he could find her, that he would find her. He dispatched a small army in search of an azure-eyed girl with white gold hair and a mark above her lip.

Across continents his soldiers searched, but never did they find Belomi's beloved.

His father died in the arms of his mother. Belomi ascended the throne. Heartbroken by the loss of Klark, he retreated from state politics and allowed his grand vizier and chief adviser to pick up his slack.

Many had thought he'd gone mad.

Through the years, he'd turned bitter and locked himself alone, away in the palace. He took concubines and bore children – as was his duty - and yet, never forgetting his love for Klark, he continued the empire's policy of religious tolerance towards persecuted minorities, welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees from Europe's inquisition into his empire.

At the hour of his death, he summoned the royal scribe to his chamber.

It is said that to this day, Sultan Belomi died in waiting.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I was going to rename them in past life, but that would be such a hassle, so I just used Klark and Belomi, as Trigedasleng spells it, I guess. This is part 1 of 2.


	2. Chapter 2

2015, Istanbul

Gina stopped amid a long corridor covered with framed portraits, nearly sending Bellamy careening right into her. The paintings depicted different men, some old, others young, all wearing an expression of boredom and indignation.

"Who are they?" She turned to Bellamy with a raised eyebrow.

He smiled down at her. "Those are the Sultans." An awkward silence passed between them. He hadn't planned on bringing her home with him, but after a boring party he was forced to attend with Octavia, he found he didn't mind much being there after meeting Gina the Canadian bartender on holiday through Europe and Asia Minor. He was fond of her brash no-nonsense personality. "Family and ancestors." He made his way to one portrait and stood before it.

"And that one?" She pointed toward the painting of a young sultan with a glint of madness in his eyes.

"Belomi."

"He could be your twin." She looked between the portrait and Bellamy, then back again, cataloguing the similarities. "What happened to him?"

Bellamy shrugged. He didn't care much for the old superstitions. "The old myths seem to agree that every sultan descended from Belomi was cursed."

Gina snorted, hands on her hips. "I know my history, and I've never heard that."

He shrugged, thrusting his hands into his pockets, staring up at his ancestral likeness. "Private journals, family secrets you wouldn't find in a textbook."

"So what do the journals say about Belomi?"

Bellamy rolled on the balls of his feet. It wasn't the first time he'd told the story. Octavia loved to hear about lost loves at bedtime as a child, and Bellamy always indulged her, even if he thought that it was a bit to morbid for a gap toothed eight-year-old at the time.

"He penned his last entry on his deathbed, or, well, a scribe annotated it. Belomi loved a girl in his youth, who died before they could marry. Her body was never found, nor was her grave site marked. He spent his entire life looking for her; he even enlisted armies to search the empire for blue-eyed blond wearing a ruby ring." He was silent for a long moment. "They never found her."

"What's that have to do with the curse?" Gina seemed genuinely interested now.

"Every man descended from Belomi that rose to power suffered terribly. Supposedly, every subsequent sultan inherited some of Belomi's madness."

She eyed him, considering. "Does this mean you're cursed? I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into, after all." She smiled mischievously, toying with the hem of his shirt. "Are you mad, too?"

He grabbed her by the waist, smiling coyly. "The only thing driving me mad right now is you."

* * *

Bellamy startled awake in the early hours before dawn as gusts of rain beat against the roof. Soothing his aching temple, he blindly reached for the box of ibuprofen beside the bed, trying to pop the lid with his thumb. He swore silently when the top popped open, spilling the white pills over the hardwood floor, settling into corners beneath the bed and the armoire.

Pushing on his glasses, he swept an open palm against the wood, gathering stray pills and scooping them back in the bottle as he popped two in his mouth and guzzled down the lukewarm water at his bedside.

Dark shadows moved about the room, reflecting glints of light rolling on water from the pool outside. Sheer beige curtains shivered in the breeze, the edges creeping out beyond the windowpane, trying to take flight in the night breeze. Gina lay on her side, her bare figure beaded with pearls of sweat, the sheets damp and filling the room with the scent of the ocean. As the sun pushed towards the horizon, he examined her body in the pastel hues of dawn. Her milky torso undulated softly as she breathed like the quiet ripples of the Bosphorus outside.

The headaches were coming on more often now. Maybe he was finally succumbing to his ancestor's curse.

* * *

2016

His headaches started to worsen by the day. For the last year, Bellamy had suffered from horrible migraines. He pursed through all of Octavia's so-called remedies, drinking bitter teas infused with ingredients that sounded more at home on shampoo bottles than in his drink, nearly overdosed on ibuprofen, and some days, spent the entire days in bed. For months, doctors told him it was just the stress of his everyday life, but after nearly a year of growing pressure in his temple, Bellamy found out that his condition had been misdiagnosed from the start.

It was his fourth visit to the doctor's office in three months. Bellamy scribbled down information on the registration forms and returned the clipboard to Roma, the pretty nurse who took his blood pressure and checked his vitals each time he visited.

"Have a seat. The doctor will be in with you shortly, Mr. Blake."

Bellamy took a seat in the brightly lit waiting area and leafed through a newspaper. The front page was taken up by just one article. He skimmed the story and learned that Jacapo Sinclair, the nation's most prominent writer, would stand trial for insulting the Turkish government. Sinclair was being punished for publicly acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. He faced up to three years in jail for his indiscretion. You can't stop progress, he thought to himself, then went through a mental list of those he could contact that might be able to aid in the man's release.

"Mr. Blake, the doctor will see you now," the receptionist called out a few minutes later. "Third door on the left."

He handed off the registration clipboard and headed down a narrow hallway tiled in checkered squares of white and pastel green.

Roma instructed him to remove his clothing and change into a blue gown as she slid behind a protective curtain to give him privacy. The tips of his ears reddened as he changed into the paper dress, embarrassed when it barely reached mid-thigh. When she returned a few odd minutes later, she took his blood pressure, nodding, and scribbling down anecdotes in his file as he went over his symptoms with her for the umpteenth time in weeks. "Same as always. Migraines, night sweats, blurry vision even with my glasses."

* * *

A week later, he received a phone call from the doctor's office. "The doctor would like you to come in."

Bellamy opened his leather planner and flipped to the calendar at the back. "How's Wednesday?"

"Can you make it in today?"

"I've got a meeting today." His eyes scanned the pages of the calendar. His week was completely booked. It hadn't been easy, but he'd finally gotten an appointment with the deputy minister about pardoning Jacapo Sinclair, and after, an early dinner with Octavia and her new fiancée, Lincoln while they were in town. Since she moved to London to attend Oxford, he'd hardly seen her. He wasn't entirely thrilled that she was marrying a man older than him, but Octavia didn't take kindly to anyone telling her what to do. She was a freight train without brakes, and her anger had wide reaches.

"Mr. Blake, the doctor wants you to come by sometime today. It's about your test results." Roma cleared her throat as though she were about to say something else.

He sighed, massaging his temples as another headache peaked. "All right, I'll be there in an hour." He tapped at the end button and called his receptionist on the intercom. "Call the minister, please, and cancel my appointment."

"Mr. Blake, it was not easy to get that appointment. I doubt he'll reschedule. He's a very proud man."

"Tell the minister that something has come up."

An hour later Bellamy was at the clinic. For the first time Roma did not ask him to change into a pale blue gown and wait in an examining room, but rather, she showed him into the doctor's office, a small space, just big enough for a desk and two chairs. Somewhere outside the small, barred window, a car alarm blared. Dr. Mbege craned his neck to peer out for a moment, then cranked the latch, effectively shutting the window and muting the shrill sound. Mbege shook Bellamy's hand in greeting and gestured for him to sit down across from him. The upholstered chair was considerably lower than the armchair the doctor occupied, and Bellamy squirmed uncomfortably trying to straighten his posture.

"It's a very rare form of cancer," Mbege explained, as his spectacles bobbed up and down with each frown. Bellamy slumped into the deepest part of the cushion as the doctor droned on.

"You must be feeling so many different emotions right now. Do you have anyone you can talk to, family or friends? I can set you up with…" the doctor continued.

Bellamy thought back to the video games he'd used to play with his sister as kids. His father had always brought back games popular in America, and all the children in the neighborhood would come over and watch Bellamy and Octavia battle each other in multiplayer fight games. The words Game Over would flit across the screen and Octavia would scream "You're dead, sucka! Eat toast!" before punching him in the shoulder and launching into a victory dance.

Game Over.

"Talk to me. Tell me what's going on in your head," the doctor pressed on. "Mr. Blake?"

Dr. Mbege's kept talking, but Bellamy only caught snippets of what he was saying. It felt like he was sitting underwater, where everything was muffled. "We have been great strides… New York… experimental…"

The room fell quiet, except for the rustling of the ceiling fan overhead pushing stale air. Mbege held out several Coping with Cancer pamphlets.

"There's a lot to think about, but…."

Bellamy quickly thanked the doctor, thrusting the laminated brochures into his bag, and left the room. "Game over," he murmured under his breath, before closing the door behind him.

* * *

The driver cast a curious glance at Bellamy as he lifted the bag to load it into the trunk of the old cab.

"Traveling light?"

"I suppose I am."

His duffel contained only a weeks' worth of clothes and a weathered copy of The Iliad that Octavia had presented him for his twentieth birthday.

"Airport, please."

They headed through the narrow winding streets along the edge of cliffs. On the side of the dusty road, women and pre-adolescent panhandlers waved down passing vehicles selling roses, bottled water, and squares of honey-glazed baklava.

Bellamy moved the duffel from the seat beside him and placed it on his lap. He'd originally planned to bring no luggage at all, just a small carry-on, but he figured a brown guy with a lack of baggage, the TSA might give him a hard time going through security. Every time he'd travel to America, he'd get stopped, whereas Octavia with her lighter skin would be waved through.

A day later, he rode along the moving walkway towards his designated baggage claim area. People rushed by, their legs moving speedily while their wheelies screeched along the ribbed walkway. Recognizing his black duffel, he pushed his way through a crowd of Japanese tourists and plucked his bag from the carousel. He made his way to the exit and, not minding the dirty looks of people waiting patiently in line for a taxi, hopped into the next yellow cab that pulled up to the curbside.

After checking himself into the hospital, he was prepped for the nine and half hour surgery that was scheduled for the following morning. The doctors informed him that there was only a small chance he'd survive the surgery, a fact he was fully aware of. The tumor was close to his brain. He had written his will and a letter to Octavia, explaining why he hadn't told her about the cancer.

Before the anesthesia kicked in, a strange thought flashed through his mind.

Belomi's Curse.

* * *

He survived the surgery.

* * *

At noon one chilly Friday afternoon in May, Clarke Griffin entered his hospital room. Her kitten heels clicked against the hard, cold floor, startling him out of a fitful doze. Bellamy looked up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," she whispered. "I'm just visiting my father."

She pointed towards the room divider as though they could both see the man behind it, then passed the foot of his bed, disappearing behind a pale blue curtain that divided the room. The man had been there, just on the other side of the curtain since Bellamy had woke up, but he'd never saw him.

The legs of an armchair screeched against the tiles as she pulled up a chair, presumably to her father's bedside.

"Hey dad," Bellamy heard her whisper.

"I've missed you." The man's voice was hoarse, his strained breathing louder than his words.

"Wait. Let me help you."

"That's okay, sweetie, I can do it on my own." Bellamy could hear the man fidgeting with the manual controls to his adjustable bed. "How's your project coming along?"

"Almost finished, but haven't been able to get the eyes right."

"If the eyes aren't right, then nothing else is."

"I'll get them right dad. We've plenty of time." She sounded irritated.

"Clarke—"

"I know."

Silence reigned supreme for a heavy moment. The legs of the small wooden chair screeched once more against the tiles as the girl – Clarke, her dad called her - shuffled with her things.

"I found this in the attic," she said after a few minutes. "There's a bunch of old mementos inside. I thought you might want to see them." When he didn't answer, she continued, "I went through them. There were a bunch of old photos, too."

"Clarke…" her father warned.

Clarke plowed right on through, as if talking would make her forget where they were. "I don't recognize anyone in these pictures, besides you. You always said you didn't have any photos from France."

There was a moment of silence, then, "Put the box away."

"There was a ring was in the box."

Bellamy could hear her going through her bag for a moment.

"It's a ruby. My mother gave it to me. Go ahead. Try it on."

"Really?"

"It's yours now. No point leaving it in an old box."

"There's an inscription. Beneath the band."

"Ah, yes. I think my mother once told me that it was Old Ottoman."

"What does it mean?"

"She never told me. I don't think she even knew."

A light drizzle began to rapped the windowpane. They sat for some time, quiet, nothing but the sound of the man's loud breathing and Clarke's quiet shuffling. It was the silence of two people who understood that in the noise of petty banter, meaning was often lost. Bellamy, the man, and Clarke, all sat quietly listening to the sound of the rain

.

When she finally emerged from the other side of the curtain, Bellamy had the vague sense he'd met her before. Her blue eyes glowed in his memory.

She kept her eyes to the ground and a weathered messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Her fingers folded around the strap exposing a crimson ruby, bold and luminous against the stark backdrop. As she passed his bed, she glanced up and smiled. Her long blond hair fell before her azure eyes as she made her way towards the door leaving behind the strange aroma of acrylic paint and fresh earth.

Bellamy felt as though new life had breathed into him.

* * *

Clarke contemplated her makeshift studio with her hands on her hips. Sunlight poured through the curtain-less windows, igniting a plume of sun-dipped dust that settled gently onto the uneven floorboards. Her studio had been converted from an old barn that, once upon a time, held horses. It stood an acre from the house she grew up in, a Norman Rockwell creation with giant windows and a splintered porch.

She had left her equipment and canvases hanging on bent, protruding nails that had once been used to hang horseshoes and saddles. The walls were barely visible beneath countless portraits of all the town's neighbors. Some were pitifully proud, like Mr. Wallace from across the street. He moved like an old bulldog, wobbling in all his magnificence, a stump of durability who growled when he mumbled. She painted Mrs. Kane, her weathered face enchanting as the etchings on a treasure map, her brown-grey hair puffed in a glorious celebration of antique beauty. There was the portrait of Raven, who had never sat still in her life, that had to be painted from memory.

Wells had to be painted from memory too, forever stuck at seventeen.

Countless portraits covered every inch of the studio's walls. Raven had called it creepy the first (and last) time she came - the eyes, she said, surveyed the visitors like a thousand brooding Mona Lisa's. They were watching her, she claimed. Clarke didn't mind. They were all the eyes of people she knew.

While many of her friends lived in the city, renting out overly expensive apartments or small rooms in Brooklyn or Williamsburg, she was happy to be back home in Jersey. The city was just an hour ride away, with trains heading out every other hour.

And of course, when she'd learnt about her father's illness, she moved home from Connecticut right away. Once, time had been an inconsequential factor in her life. She'd never worn a watch, let alone follow a schedule. She had a lifetime ahead of her. And then, quite suddenly, they got the news and time had become very real. Time was running out. Clarke deferred college a semester and moved home.

Her father's portrait did sweat a little in warm afternoons, but that did nothing to dampen its beauty. On the contrary, it lent Jake Griffin's image a dreamy quality, as though he were about to fall asleep, or perhaps, vanish.

The visit with her dad earlier that day had distressed her. She had never been under a deadline to finish any of her works. She only had a few weeks, possibly just a few days, to finish it. But she just couldn't get the eyes right.

Clarke sighed, pausing her paint brush an inch from the canvas, eyes raking over the canvas.

The skin was accurately rugged and aged, a texture she'd only been able to achieve after experimenting with several different brushes. The lines around his mouth were prominent, but not sobering. They attested to a lifetime of laughter, of love. The cheekbones were highly articulated in the Parisian sense, a clear indicator of his European descent. His shaggy hair was smoothed back neatly behind his ears, messy at the natural part.

He was a handsome man with gentle eyes. It was the color of those eyes that Clarke could not get quite right. She'd mixed all the colors of her palate, but no matter what combination she tried, she could not produce the color of a secret. She needed to see him. She got to her feet, slung her sack over her shoulder, then carefully lifted the canvas from the easel. She headed out to her beat up jeep, unhinged the hatchback and slid the portrait in all the way.

* * *

Clarke worked feverishly to finish Jake's portrait, his whole life captured in eyes that could see long after his stopped. Bellamy watched as each day, Jake's lids drooped a little further. After three days of watching her hover above the canvas, her tongue poking slightly from her bottom lip in concentration, Bellamy noticed that her tubes began to empty of paint.

Still, she stayed by her dad's bedside painting, not bothering to eat or rest. Once in awhile her brush would droop as she caught herself dozing off while she worked, painting in a dream where paints never dried or dripped and fathers only slept peacefully. Clarke pressed her tubes frantically to force out every last drop of paint. She stood while she worked, her canvas propped upon a splintered, wooden easel.

"Almost done," she whispered late one evening.

Bellamy had yet to say a word to her. She breathed heavily as she worked. Even in the darkness, he could tell that her eyes were red and her cheeks wet and flushed. His eyes had been on her throughout the night and for the first time, she looked at him directly.

"Finished," she called as she moved the canvas over to his side of the room. "It looks like him, right?"

"It does."

She nodded slowly as though his response required some prolonged measure of contemplation, then sat in the chair beside her dad's bed. "I'm Clarke," she mumbled as her short frame sunk low into the chair.

"Bellamy." For the first time that evening, Bellamy turned his bandaged face away from her. He suddenly felt self conscious about the bandages around his face, where the tumor had been removed. He could only imagine the ugly, angry incision along his skull that laid beneath whenever the nurses came in to check how it was healing. They had left a mirror, but he found himself avoiding it like the plague.

He'd used to be attractive, in the easy effortless way people can sometimes be, where he'd forget his contacts days on end and brushing his hair seemed too daunting a task to bother. Now, people would look at him differently, eyes drawn to the hideous, raised scar on the side of his head. He didn't know why he even cared; he certainly never worried about his appearance before, but now people would look at the wound like it was him, rather than something he survived.

"Bellamy," she repeated, sounding it out. He found that he liked it, his name rolling off her tongue.

"Goodnight, Clarke," he whispered. He could feel her eyes on him, accessing him. It was unnerving to have her look at him, a caricature of what he used to be.

"Night."

* * *

She awoke in that hard-wooden chair with a stiff neck and a minor headache as she rotated her neck, and retrieved the canvas. The paint, just hours before wet and dreamy, had to her exhausted surprise, finally dried. The portrait was complete.

She awoke and Jake Griffin had died.

Jewish law dictated that the dead should be buried as soon as possible, and so the next day, over a hundred people gathered under the leaves of wild oaks and cedar flurries to say goodbye. In the overarching forests of the Jewish cemetery, dozens of friends and family members stood quietly as the Rabbi recited the Kaddish - the mourner's prayer. Every so often, the crowd would chant "amen" in muffled unison.

As they lowered the wooden casket into the ground, Clarke said goodbye to her father for the last time.

Back home, Clarke and her mom sat shiva. Abby took a sip of her black coffee and looked out of the living room window at the shallow pond in the distance, where ferocious geese had attacked Clarke more than once while trying to feed the ducks. Abby hadn't said a work since Jake Griffin was pronounced dead. Not to Clarke, not to anyone.

* * *

Sensing he was being watched, Bellamy pushed his glasses on, eyeing the sliver of body exposed through the crack in the door. A few degrees of isolation waned between them as the door yielded an inch or two exposing the full breadth of her scoping frame. Dark shadows ran the length of her cheekbones and high slinking neck as her bright eyes glistened like blue topaz against her ghostly complexion.

"Can I come in?"

He nodded, just barely. She made her way to the windows, reaching up to draw the shades back. "Wait, don't," he called out, but she'd already let the light pour in. He hissed as he lifted his hands to shield his face like Bela Lugosi.

She leveled him up with her eyes. In him, she could find all the elements of a Picasso painting, like Les Mademoiselles d'Avignon, where a face was not only a face, but was contorted into something stunningly painful, beautiful, and stubborn.

"I can put them back down if you want me to."

"It's fine," he grumbled, put out but not willing to admit it. He tried to shield his face from her. "It's just… I don't want you to be uncomfortable." He saw how people looked at him now, with pity or disgust.

Her eyes fell to the bandages obscuring half his face, something straight out of Phantom of the Opera. Half of his face was perfect in every way, a beautiful constellation of freckles and wild black hair. It only served to make the other side devastating, where she could see te edges of the bandages and the shaved skin beneath.

Clark approached the chair by his side, the long pleats of her dress rustling curiously over her hips, dropping her bag to the ground with reckless ease. "It doesn't bother me."

He cast an incredulous look in her direction, but said nothing.

"It doesn't," she insisted. "Now you've got that whole bad boy thing going on. Girls love that."

The tips of his ears turned red and he found himself unable to look at her directly.

"I have this friend," she plowed on, not noticing his blush. "Raven. She's a mechanic. Last year she was in a bad car accident, and now she has to wear a leg brace. She says we all have battle scars, we just need to build a brace for ours."

"Raven's a smart girl."

Silence reigned supreme; only the whirring of the fan and the city below filtered through the quiet. Raven was one of the strongest people she knew, and Bellamy had already survived so much.

She focused on him again, and followed his eyes to where the curtain that had divided the room between Bellamy and her father was now pushed back and the bed empty. The portrait of Jake Griffin was still leaning against the wall facing Bellamy's bed.

"I'm sorry for your loss." The tide of his breath heaved as the movement of air scuffed along the insides of his lungs.

Her eyes welled up and for a moment it looked as though she were going to walk right out.

"Clarke?" he questioned quietly.

Taking a deep breath, she turned and forced a smile.

"You left your painting here."

As she burrowed her fists into her pockets, she looked up and shrugged.

"It's not very good."

"I disagree."

"You're quite the contrarian, aren't you?"

He glanced up at her with wide, red-rimmed eyes. "I don't know what I am."

She bit her lip then looked away hurriedly. "So, what do you like about it?"

"A lot of things."

She rolled her eyes playfully. "How vague."

"The eyes, I guess. You captured his eyes very well."

Clarke remained silent for several seconds, and when he looked at her, she turned her head away from him, blinking back tears. "Really?"

"You seem surprised."

"It's just …I had a hard time..." Her voice trailed off as she dropped her chin and dragged shaky fingers through her hair.

"The eyes are the windows to the soul, and all that. I imagine a soul is a difficult thing to paint…"

"Yeah." She lifted her head as her hands fell limply to her sides.

"You did good," he said quietly.

She shook her head. "There were just so many things I didn't know about him."

"You knew him."

She tore her gaze away from the glossy, white tiles, looked up and scowled. "How could you even know that?"

Bellamy eyes flickered to the portrait for a long moment, studied the shape and the grooves and the eyes. Eyes like Clarke's. "It's like the eyes stare back at you, like it's alive. You couldn't have done that, you couldn't do that, without knowing a person." A moment passed before a coughing fit overtook him. She reached for the cup by his bed and held it to his lips. Covered in tubes and tape, his hand jerked around her fingers as he tried to gain control of himself. He took a few shallow sips before his hacking was lulled to silence.

Hand to hand, skin to skin, they were suspended in the frozen current of the static air between them, as if a current had just passed between them. His eyes met hers. Clarke let her hand slip away as she stepped back clumsily. He studied her for a long moment, cataloguing her face, like he knew her from somewhere and was trying to place it. His eyes bore through her mercilessly like drills. She tore her gaze away and focused on the giant round clock, ticking loudly with every second.

"Do you have to be somewhere?" He stared at her unflinchingly.

Footsteps shuffled in the hall and shuffling outside the room. A tall man with sharp, angular cheekbones stood with his head hung low over stacked papers resting in an open manila folder crossed the threshold. A stethoscope hung from around his neck. Dr. Nyko, a senior member of the hospital's oncology unit, stood in the doorway with his thick brows forming a V. He looked up, his gaze wandering from Clarke to Bellamy, and back again. Probably wondering why the daughter of a deceased patient was back in the same room again.

"Mr. Blake, how're you today? The nurses say you barely touched your morphine drip this weekend —That's great to hear, so the pain is going away?"

"I'm fine." He smiled tightly.

Dr. Nyko shuffled around Clarke's chair, loosening the stethoscope from around his neck and plugged his ears with the instrument. "Deep breaths," he instructed, as he slid the metal tip beneath the opening of Bellamy's mustard yellow gown. "We should wait a few days before we begin the radiation." He hastily scribbled notes into the folder in a scratch only doctors can achieve, capped his pen, and returned it to his pocket. "We should talk about what's going to happen as we move forward."

Clarke reached for her bag and headed for the door. "I'm sorry. This is obviously a bad time. I shouldn't have barged in like this."

"Clarke," Bellamy called after her. She turned in the doorway to face him. "Same time tomorrow?"

She swallowed hard then nodded. "See you then."

* * *

As promised, she sauntered through his doorway around noon again the next day. Her blond hair hung loose in waves that fell just past her shoulders. Cloaked in the luminosity of her white linen dress, she appeared strikingly bare. She wore no bracelets, no polish on her hands, nor the big wristwatch of her father's that slid up and down her thin wrist the previous day. Her only adornment- the crimson ruby ring bright against her ivory complexion. The room became saturated with a cool, misted memory, effervescent, like a flashback in a modern film

.

For a moment, he was transported thousands of miles away, back to his home on the shores of the strait. Bellamy looked up at her, astounded. Her scent filled his memory, mingled with memories and dreams that didn't quite feel real.

"You smell like the sea," he whispered.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" She gathered her hair back in a messy ponytail and sank into the chair by his bed. "The only sea around has cigarette butts and garbage floating in it—probably more than a few cinder blocked bodies, too."

She smelled familiar, like home on the Bosphorus. He closed his eyes and took a deep, long breath. "Not that one." He envisioned her through the blank canvas of his imagination. "You haven't been painting." It sounded like an accusation.

She quirked an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"You usually smell like acrylics."

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Most people don't like it at all, I don't know anyone who misses it."

A stocky attendant in an ice blue uniform appeared, offering Bellamy a selection of snacks laid out on a plastic tray. He frowned, grabbed a juice box, and waved her away.

"I do."

"Huh?"

The rough strap of her leather bag whipped against the glossy floor as she let her purse slip from her lap, spilling out tubes of lipstick, tissue, gum, and whatever else girls lugged around constantly.

"I like it, it suits you." He clarified, his eyes following a purple tube as it rolled into a string of condoms.

Her face reddened as she looked around at the mess she had made. The ruby glistened in the sunlight as she grappled along the floor for a lipstick, a few scattered coins, the condoms, and three individually wrapped tampons. When she'd gathered her belongings, she rose and stood in her place, fidgeting, suddenly shy, as if waiting for instruction. As if she were waiting for a purpose.

"Clarke?"

"Hmm?" She didn't look up.

"Are you okay?"

She frowned then swept the tip of her shoe against the floor. "Do you mind if I hang out here for a while?"

"I'd mind if you left."

"I won't bother you. Brought something to read here with me." She held up a book as she spoke.

He nodded but said nothing. Bellamy didn't mind companionable silence, there was something to be said for friendships comfortable enough that two people could sit comfortably in the quiet.

She sank back into the seat of the chair and buried herself behind a paperback wall. He watched her curiously as the minutes passed. Her tentative gaze, met by his inquisitive eyes, crept over the edge of her book.

She sighed and tossed the book onto his bedside table, fidgeting and slouching low in her seat.

"You seem unsettled."

She looked over at the portrait of Jake Griffin then turned her attentions to the steady drip of I.V fluid bagged by his side. It seemed to tick with each and every drip, a collaboration with the clock hanging high over his bed.

"I don't think I can focus on anything right now." As he peered into her slinking blue eyes, the sound of silence gushed throughout the room like a seething, scalding wave.

"We could talk?" he said after a time.

She dropped her chin and looked away. "I don't really want to talk."

He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Fair enough."

Silence reigned supreme, their whispering eyes communicating more than clumsy words ever could.

* * *

Something strange was happening to Clarke. Her father was dead, but it was her mother who became a ghost. Never home, her mother took even more hours at the local hospital, until Clarke was convinced she was avoiding her. While Clarke was grieving the loss of Jake, and the consequential loss of her mom, a new energy had taken her by force in the form of Bellamy Blake.

Now, more than ever before, Clarke spent more hours logged in the studio, late into the night and the following day. She missed meals until her stomach growled hollowly; she missed phone calls until her battery would drain completely. She would come home with her hair covered in splotches of paint and charcoal dusted on her face. She would bring all her new artwork to his hospital room and cover his wall with every scene she could capture.

His once sterile cubicle had started out as a unit of solitary confinement. Then slowly, and all at once, portraits and landscapes began to cover the walls. (The nurses would follow Clarke whenever wandered past the station to Bellamy's room with a new canvas in hand). His room became a gallery of countless portraits, fiery sunsets, lovers embracing, children laughing – any bit of the outside world she could give him.

She had even painted Octavia for him from a crinkled photo of the pair arm in arm with the Tower of London in the backdrop that he'd kept in his wallet.

(He loved that one most of all.)

She spent the mornings by his side. They laughed and talked about life and politics and fond childhood memories. She even read The Iliad to him, even though she claimed to hate it.

In the afternoons, he'd sleep, dreaming of sweet halvah and sugar coated pineapples sliced and glistening like yellow half-moons. He dreamed of bundles of licorice stems Aurora would bring home from the sweet shop and hide before Octavia ruined her dinner.

He had silent dreams, too, dreams where nothing happened at all, dreams of a white bliss and nothingness, sheer and pure and fair. Dreams of empty space and peaceful nothings.

While he dreamed, Clarke would sketch him resting peacefully, capture each and every constellation of freckles on his face. Other times, she'd wander into nearly museums, find statues of stories he'd tell her about the Greek and Romans.

Clarke had transformed the bitter starkness of his room into a vibrant, bustling art gallery, where patients and doctors alike stopped in to marvel at the beauty of the world she had created. Through her paintings, Bellamy was transported through time and space to the outside world.

Through her, he was transported home.

One afternoon, Bellamy sat up, half lost in a dream, half lost in a memory. "Don't leave me again." His fingers reached out for her.

"I'm not going anywhere." She pushed in close and brushed a stray curl away from his eye. "I never have."

As soon as she heard her words, she sensed they were untrue.

* * *

Shortly after Clarke left that evening, one of the new nurses came in to check his vitals, then turned his attention towards the works on the wall opposite the bed. Maya Vie – her name badge declared - gestured toward the paintings before turning back to Bellamy.

"These are beautiful." Floor to ceiling – or as high as Clarke could reach - the paintings looked like mosaic tiles. "Who did all of this?"

His voice softened as he looked over the paintings fondly. "A friend."

Maya quietly contemplated this, her dark eyes roving hungrily over the landscapes. "Good friend. You're very lucky."

Bellamy hadn't thought of himself as lucky, confined to a hospital bed day in and day out.

"Most people would give anything to be loved like this." Maya whispered as she studied the artwork for a few more moments before heading to the door. When she reached the doorjamb, she turned to Bellamy and gestured at the view.

"This," she said, smiling indulgently. "This is a labor of love."

* * *

The morning after his first chemotherapy session, Clarke coaxed him from his bed and helped him change into a clean pair of sweatpants and a dark blue vee neck.

Bellamy pushed the metal pole supporting his IV drip as Clarke slowly navigated him through the winding hallways towards the courtyard. Outside, she led him to a rickety wooden and metal bench in the shadow of the hospital, where she had already set up her easel and canvas earlier that morning.

"What's going on?" he suspiciously demanded, gesturing to the easel positioned beside them. She plopped down beside him and leaned back.

"I thought I'd paint." She shrugged then sank deeper into the seat of the bench.

"You're not going to paint me."

She pursued her lips but kept her eyes on the fountain ahead and said nothing.

"Clarke. You're not going to paint me."

She stood abruptly and turned to face him. "Too bad, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"No."

"No?" Her hands fisted at her hips, reminding him so much of Octavia right before she got her way.

"I won't let you."

"It doesn't matter whether or not you let me. I've already started."

"It's blank!" His hands shot up wildly.

"I've already started it in my head."

"Well, I won't sit for you."

"You don't have to."

"You've never seen my face beneath all this," he gestured to the bandages.

"I know you."

"I… I don't want to see it." His voice dropped an octave. "I know what they see."

"But you don't know what I see."

He looked at her. "I'm not sure I want too."

Clarke made her way to the canvas. "I'm going to paint you. I've made up my mind."

"Go to hell."

"I'm not going anywhere, Bellamy."

"And what if you do?" he asked.

"I told you, I'm not going anywhere."

"Can you really promise that?"

"I meant what I said."

He dropped his head. "I'm scared."

"You're brave."

"I'm so scared. That's..." he paused, gathering his words. "That's why I didn't tell Octavia about any of this. I don't want her to see me like this. We haven't been on good terms in a while."

"She's your family. She'd want to be here for you." She put down her brush and moved closer to him.

"What do you know?" he said gruffly.

"I know you. I don't think I've ever never known anyone quite like I know you."

"Clarke?" he murmured quietly.

"What?" she asked, her voice strained.

The pad of his thumb ran the length of her hand. "I know you, too. I think… I think I always have."

* * *

He sat for his portrait and dozed off into a dream saturated with the smells of home. Every few moments he awoke with a sudden sense of dread. He'd look up to say, "Don't leave me." For three days, she painted his image, mixing colors and carefully selecting the right brushes. At home, she'd sketch his image a dozen times over, but with each one, she was certain she was a little further from the truth. Like her father, Bellamy was a man of secrets. Painting a secret was no easy feat. It always came back to the eyes.

After three days of illness, followed by three days of recuperation, Bellamy underwent his second dose of chemotherapy. He clenched his fists as the toxins spread throughout his body. "I can't do this," he said between waves of grappling nausea.

She grabbed his hand, smoothing out his fist, sandwiching his warm fingers between her own. "You can, and you will."

He endured three days and nights of nausea and vomiting. His insides felt like hot coals had molted all his organs. When the nausea finally subsided, Clarke helped him change into a fresh shirt and they played checkers with a cardboard box Clarke had filched and colored squares with a permanent marker, and pieces using skittles and peanut M&M's from the third-floor vending machine. (Bellamy's was obviously the peanut M&M's).

Later, she slid off the ruby ring from her finger to wash her hands free of Cheeto dust. Curiously, he slid the ring from his bedside for inspection, his fingertips sliding along the inscription.

Clarke returned from the bathroom, shaking off her wet hands, and a sudden sense of déjà vu coursed through him, bringing along a flitting vision of greenery and sea. Frustrated, he leaned forward and examined her closely as she plopped into the upholstered chair, trying to conjure the lost memory. A hiding tree of lush green leaves and drooping pomegranates. A girl. A vanishing.

He choked on the stark clarity as pieces of a puzzle snapped into place. The curse.

Had that been what was looming over him all this time? As he recalled, there was only one way the curse could ever be broken. A blue-eyed girl wearing a ruby ring. Curse be damned; he had turned it into a real, living thing through his belief in some age-old curse. There were no witches and cauldrons, just a Sultan who loved a dead girl. It was a tragedy of a love unfulfilled, but it was not a curse.

"Bell?" Clarke hovered over him, worry clear across her features. It obviously wasn't the first time she had called his name. He dropped his face into his palms and began to laugh.

"You're starting to worry me, Bellamy."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he chanted through his laughter.

She looked at him as if he'd finally lost his marbles. "Why are you laughing?"

He wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to catch his breath as his laughter turned into coughing. "Because I'm happy." He pulled her to his chest, slid the ring back over her finger, and kissed her with every ounce of strength he had left. He had survived surgery, and he would survive chemo, too.

* * *

Several weeks passed with intermittent periods of illness followed by periods of recuperation. Clarke came to see him daily, bringing him library books and her laptop to stream movies she'd downloaded (not legally, much to his chagrin). When it was warm, they sat out in the garden and she worked on his portrait. Most of the nurses greeted Clarke by name now, and always wondered what she was painting next.

They laughed and joked. There were times when they were silent too. He'd lay on the grass the courtyard in the warmth of the sun on his face. He sat for a few hours while Clarke recreated his nose and brow and chin, his freckles and somber expression.

The light began to fade and the temperature dropped. It was then that Bellamy admitted to Clarke, what he'd never had the courage to admit to anyone before, his eyes were fixed on some obscure point in the distance as he spoke.

"All I do is hurt people," was all he managed for a time. "I'm a monster."

A breeze filtered through the courtyard, licked his ears, stroked his hair. "It was me. I killed my mother." He nodded to himself, focusing on individual blades of grass beneath his bare feet as he remembered the chicken in the road, and how he swerved. The car flipping. "She told me to slow down but I didn't listen."

Clarke studied him for a moment, then resumed the path of her brush across the canvas. "Go on."

He sighed then rubbed his eyes.

"Don't stop now."

He looked up at her. She was staring at him, with her arm raised and her brush poised against the canvas.

"Is that how this works? You paint and I confess?"

She shrugged noncommittally. "That's how this works."

He told her, and she painted.

She'd finally discovered the color of Bellamy's secret.

At twilight, the portrait was complete.

* * *

 **Fin. Thanks for reading! Reviews are how I get paid :)**


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